A limited constitutional government calls for a rules-based, freemarket monetary system, not the topsy-turvy fiat dollar that now exists under central banking. This issue of the Cato Journal examines the case for alternatives to central banking and the reforms needed to move toward free-market money.

The more widespread use of body cameras will make it easier for the American public to better understand how police officers do their jobs and under what circumstances they feel that it is necessary to resort to deadly force.

Americans are finally enjoying an improving economy after years of recession and slow growth. The unemployment rate is dropping, the economy is expanding, and public confidence is rising. Surely our economic crisis is behind us. Or is it? In Going for Broke: Deficits, Debt, and the Entitlement Crisis, Cato scholar Michael D. Tanner examines the growing national debt and its dire implications for our future and explains why a looming financial meltdown may be far worse than anyone expects.

The Cato Institute has released its 2014 Annual Report, which documents a dynamic year of growth and productivity. “Libertarianism is not just a framework for utopia,” Cato’s David Boaz writes in his book, The Libertarian Mind. “It is the indispensable framework for the future.” And as the new report demonstrates, the Cato Institute, thanks largely to the generosity of our Sponsors, is leading the charge to apply this framework across the policy spectrum.

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Tag: Austria

The European Union was meant to create a common market with free movement of goods, services, capital and people. The citizens of the “new” member states, such as the Czech Republic, should have been free to work in the “old” member states, such as Austria, from the date of accession of the “new” members to the EU on May 1, 2004. The Austrian government managed to postpone the horror of having laborers from ex-communist countries offer cheaper services to the Austrian citizenry until 2011.

With the 2011 deadline looming, Austrian politicians came up with an ingenious way to make it more difficult for the Czechs and other hoi polloi to enter the Austrian labor market. Beginning next year, it will be “illegal” for Austrian employers to pay less to a foreign laborer than they would to an Austrian. I am looking forward to seeing how this is to be accomplished without further wage regulations (collective bargaining and wage minimums in different sectors of the economy are widely used) and accompanying corruption.

I hope that the Czechs take the Austrian government to the European Court of Justice and pronto. If the Austrian measure is allowed to stand, it will undermine one of the four freedoms, and destroy an important source of competition and wealth creation in Europe.

A thorough new study of 30 nations from the Institut Constant de Rebecque in Switzerland reveals serious shortcomings in America’s tax system.

The report, entitled “Tax burden and individual rights in the OECD: An International Comparison,” creates a Tax Oppression Index based on three key variables: the overall tax burden, public governance, and taxpayer rights. The good news is that the United States has a comparatively low aggregate tax burden, though America’s score on this measure would be much better in the absence of a punitively high corporate tax rate. The bad news is that corruption and inefficiency in Washington drag down America’s score for public governance. The ugly news is that America has a very low rating for protecting taxpayer rights — largely because politicians have tilted the playing field to favor the IRS, including the fact that taxpayers lose the presumption of innocence provided in the Constitution.

Here is a brief description of the study:

The OECD’s campaign against “harmful tax competition” and “tax havens” has overshadowed the essential issue, namely the important roles that both tax competition and “tax havens” play for capital preservation and formation, leading to higher prosperity and better protection of individual rights throughout the OECD.

The tax oppression index is based on 18 representative criteria measuring fiscal attractiveness, public governance and financial privacy in the 30 member states of the OECD. Switzerland appears as the country with the lowest tax oppression — due to a relatively low tax burden and a more [classical] liberal institutional order, including its citizens’ right to veto legislation, political decentralization, and protection of financial privacy. Germany and France, on the other hand, whose governments have supported the OECD’s efforts, are among the most questionable states in terms of safeguarding their residents’ individual rights.

…The tax oppression index evaluates the 30 OECD member states on three complementary dimensions quantified by 18 representative criteria, on the basis of OECD and World Bank data. The index enables relevant conclusions about the tax burden and individual rights among those countries.

Switzerland earns the top ranking in the report, followed by Luxembourg, Austria, Canada, and Slovakia. Italy and Turkey have the worst systems, followed by Poland, Mexico, and Germany. The United States is tied for 19th, behind the welfare states of Scandinavia. With Obama promising to raise tax rates and increase the power of the IRS, it may just be a matter of time before the United States is competing for the world’s most oppressive tax regime.

The Birmingham Star reports on how Switzerland, Austria, and Luxembourg are defending their human rights policies of protecting financial privacy:

Switzerland, Luxembourg and Austria are fighting attempts to put them on blacklist for being tax havens and over-secretive in banking rules. Luxembourg officials hosted discussions with the Swiss and Austrian finance ministers over the weekend, resulting in a demand for involvement in talks on the issue prior to the G20 summit next month. Luxembourg treasury officials said the small European group wanted to be involved in the debates about bank secrecy which were currently being discussed in meetings to which they did not belong, such as the G20.

Equally important, the Czech Republic is standing up for the sovereign right of jurisdictions to have strong human rights laws. The Finance Minister correctly explains that Switzerland’s laws should not be sacrificed on the altar of bigger government. The EU Business reports:

Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg defended Switzerland on Sunday against threats by EU member states to put it on a tax haven blacklist, saying sovereignty is “worth more” than lost taxes. “Certainly tax coffers here and there miss out on a couple of million euros… The independence of a country and the traditions of an independent, neutral Switzerland is however worth more than that,” Schwarzenberg said. “Why must one spoil that at all cost?” he added in an interview with the Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag. The Czech Republic holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, and Switzerland has come under intense pressure in recent months over its banking secrecy laws.